Sorority Girls Are the Right's Latest Obsession

Newsweek

7 hours ago

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If you've taken a quick glance at social media over the last few weeks, you'll likely have spotted two things. The first, viral posts of sorority girls dancing, part of the #RushTok trend that's been picking up steam as university life kicks off in August. The second, equally viral posts that the left is mad about it.
Social media is inundated with posts claiming that the videos of sorority girls are proof that America is "back," a return prompted by the election of President Donald Trump and a cultural shift toward conservatism.
If the narrative online is to be believed, the comeback has come much to the dismay of the left. But how mad is the left really? While posts outlining their outrage in response to sorority girls receive millions of views online, the outrage itself is harder to find.
Sorority Girls Are The Right's Latest Obsession
Sorority Girls Are The Right's Latest Obsession
Newsweek Illustration/Getty/AP Newsroom
As the right zeros in on sorority girls as evidence of a changing political culture, they are ushered into the echelons of the conservative hot girl, a new-age political pin-up, that this time comes complete with choreographed dances and coordinated outfits.
But are these videos actually having a political impact outside of the right, or is the idea that they are an invented issue to fan the flames of a culture war? Newsweek spoke with experts to find out more.
The Viral Phenomenon of the Sorority Girl
Standing in front of red, brick buildings, adorned by circular columns and Greek lettering, sorority girls dance in unison. The movements are synchronized, the smiles are wide, and the energy is infectious.
And millions of pairs of eyes fall upon the videos. Sororities and fraternities have been a cornerstone of pop culture for decades, in part thanks to movies like Legally Blonde, The House Bunny and Neighbors. Videos like this have been going viral over the past few years, but they have largely been divorced from political conversations, until now.
This interest, though, isn't surprising, according to Diana Z. O'Brien, a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.
"For years, there's been extensive media coverage of how both universities and young women tend to lean left politically," O'Brien said. "Against that backdrop, young women at universities participating in activities perceived as more conservative—such as joining certain sororities—is going to spark the interest of some observers."
The direct response to these videos is often positive. The comment sections are filled with fire emojis, compliments on their outfits and replies like "go girls!"
But with great virality comes great visibility, and there is a significant amount of negativity in response to this trend. According to a recent report from The Independent, some sorority girls have stepped away from posting, and some sororities have advised against posting, or, speaking to the press.
Some sororities regularly going viral include Alpha Chi Omega, University of South Carolina; Kappa Kappa Gamma, Oklahoma State University; Alpha Chi Omega, University of Tennessee; Delta Gamma, University of Tennessee; and Delta Zeta, University of Georgia. Newsweek has contacted these sororities for comment via social media message.
Looking at the content, it appears there is little either tangentially or tangibly political about it. But that hasn't stopped it from becoming a political symbol.
Joe Kinsey, of the outlet Outkick, wrote in a post on X: "The purple hair lesbians have to be furious that SEC sororities ARE BACK." As of press time, that post has been viewed 37 million times.
In an email shared with Newsweek, Kinsey said: "After years of being told that biological males should be in the pool winning national championships over U.S. Olympic female swimmers, and that it was the fair thing to do, this country is back to a place where sorority girls & Sydney Sweeney now run the show, and a huge swath of America seems to love that cultural shift."
He continued: "Have sorority girls always been doing their thing since TikTok was invented? Sure, but pop culture narratives were being run by fanatics on the coasts with the help of their sympathetic friends in the left-wing media. This country has clearly experienced a shift in the dominant voices with sororities and Sweeney appearing ready to lead the way."
Kinsey's comments reference first the discourse over trans women competing in women's sports, something that has been a hot button issue in online culture wars for years. In February, Trump signed an executive order blocking trans women from participating in women's sports, which has been condemned and criticized by advocacy groups and the LGBTQ+ community.
A post on X from Fox News about the phenomenon reads in part: "The viral 'RushTok' trend is making waves once more, with some calling it proof that "America is back," describing sorority girls as "warriors on the frontline of TikTok" pushing back on lockdown-era culture and showing renewed Gen Z patriotism." The post has been viewed more than 450,000 times as of reporting.
On the other side of the coin, though, are people arguing that there isn't a real political connection here. One post shared a video of the sorority Texas Aephi, University of Austin, and was captioned "MAGA Texas girls are beautiful." The post was shared by an account that highlighted that the sorority is in Austin, which is in Travis County, which voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
Generally speaking, when it comes to politics, young women tend to identify as liberal. Polling from Gallup shows that an average of 40 percent of young women identified as liberal between 2017 and 2024, an increase from 32 percent for 2008 to 2016, and from 28 percent for 2001 to 2007.
Newsweek spoke with pop culture content creator Morgan Harris, aka @Yaptrapped, about this trend.
"The schools that are famous in Rushtok and really gave rise to it are mostly located in the South, I think these sorts of videos can act as a sort of advertisement for who conservative young women are even though in reality you have no idea of the political leanings of everyone that is in that video," Harris said.
O'Brien echoed this, telling Newsweek that the conversations should center on the sorority members themselves, rather than "just the political meanings outsiders attach to them."
New Chapter in the Culture Wars Playbook
Amid the disparate online discourse about the trend lies a question: Why are social media trends like this used in online culture wars, and what role do they play?
Dr. Mary Anne Franks, Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard professor in intellectual property, technology and civil rights law at George Washington University Law School, told Newsweek via email: "Fabricated controversies are the currency of the online culture wars, and that is why the right tends to win them."
"Outrage bait like "liberals HATE this new trend!" doesn't just activate tired stereotypes and trigger negative emotional responses, it also serves to distract us from true outrages and exhaust the psychological resources we need to process and respond to them," Franks said.
Newsweek also spoke with Dr. Stacey Kerr, an independent researcher, and Mardi Schmeichel, an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who shared joint responses about the trend.
"The political right's framing of sorority videos as "making the left mad," despite no evidence of widespread outrage, is a classic right-wing tactic: manufacturing a fake conflict as a way to signal dominance," they said.
"The truth of the claim doesn't matter; in fact, the falsity is part of the point. By claiming that feminists and liberals are furious, right-wing commentators get to perform a win on two fronts: they cast themselves as lighthearted defenders of "fun" and "tradition" and they invite their audience to savor the imagined spectacle of their opponents seething."
"Part of why this works so well in the context of RushTok is its sheer popularity: the videos draw huge audiences and have become an easy cultural reference point," they added.
Newsweek also spoke with Deen Freelon, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, about the trend.
"This seems to be the latest iteration of a broader phenomenon in which conservative individuals accuse left-leaning people of holding views the latter deny holding," Freelon said.
"I think it shows how little the right understands the left [although the opposite may be true as well], and how much popularity and money there is to be gained in stoking division around even the most trivial of matters," Freelon added.
A Trump supporter wears a MAGA hat outside the Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights, on the outskirts of Detroit on October 16, 2024.
A Trump supporter wears a MAGA hat outside the Stellantis plant in Sterling Heights, on the outskirts of Detroit on October 16, 2024.
CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
Pom-poms, Pep, and Politics
The online obsession with sorority girls comes at a time when conservative politics has become obsessed more generally with women. Whether it's the rise of the conservative hot girl, the proliferation of the trad wife, or the conservative female influencer, the face of right-wing politics is changing. There's a new political poster girl in town, and she's putting on her MAGA cap with a manicured hand.
While the actual politics of sorority girls is blurry, the aesthetic plays into the shift and new gendered era of politics that has been unfolding online in recent years. This may be playing a part in why conservatives have latched onto this content.
Catherine Rottenberg of Goldsmiths, University of London, told Newsweek: "These images of sorority girls dancing and ostensibly celebrating 'America'—are part of a larger MAGA gendered aesthetic."
Rottenberg said that the celebration of these clubs and organizations, and the way they are framed, reinforces a gender binary: "The idea that we need women to be women and men to be men."
Rottenberg added that while distraction might be "part of the strategy," with this trend, it is also indicative of a wider promotion of "ideas of gender and femininity."
Kerr and Schmeichel echoed this, telling Newsweek: "Women's bodies and choices have always been a political battleground, and the women participating in these hyper-feminized sorority performances are primed to serve as avatars for a "victorious" traditional America, with young, white, conventionally attractive women joyfully embracing old-school femininity in open defiance of what the right paints as liberal efforts to stamp it out."
The content creator @yaptrapped highlighted a similar theme, telling Newsweek: "Conservatives need beautiful young conservative women to sell the dream of the traditional family to young conservative men and so I can see how those videos would be a powerful advertisement for that, even though it is a false advertisement based on details you couldn't possibly know about people in an internet video."